


we only do it for the scars and stories, not the fame

by phae



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Clint & Nick don't have PG vocabularies, Companionable Snark, Explicit Language, Getting Together, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Recruitment, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson did not recruit Clint Barton to SHIELD, but rather, it's the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we only do it for the scars and stories, not the fame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperdollkisses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdollkisses/gifts).



> I listed Captain America (Movies) in the Fandom list because this alludes (very vaguely) to some of the stuff in Winter Soldier. Nothing spoiler-like, I don't think. It's set pre-movies, though. Like, pre-MCU.
> 
> Title is from Fall Out Boy's _Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends_.
> 
> This began as a prompt fill for [paperdollkiss](http://paperdollkiss.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, but it got away from me, as they often do. Original prompt: _Clint brings Phil into SHIELD where he fast tracks through with an ease that even the higher ups/most trained don't have._

Clint flicks on his Bluetooth earpiece, routing the call through an untraceable burner to Nick’s secure (and top secret, friends-only) line. “I’m bringing someone in,” he says as soon as the line goes live, his eyes tracking his target easily behind the purple-tinted lenses of his sunglasses.

"I didn’t send you halfway round the world to pick up a puppy at the goddamn pound, Barton," Nick grouses back. Clint, honed in as he is to his boss’s many moods, can hear the underlying curiosity, though.

"Aw, but sir! This one’s got such a damn fine pedigree," Clint teases with a smirk.

Nick sighs down the line, but it sounds enough like a huff of amusement that Clint doesn’t pay it much mind. “You got something planned for your new pet?”

"I was thinking he’d be more suited to holding the leash, actually."

"A _handler_? I don’t care what can of alphabet soup you’re pulling this one from; I don’t want my agency cross-contaminated with that bullshit. I’ve got enough problems on my hands already.”

“How lucky that he’s a free agent, then.” Clint leans back in his quaint little café chair as, across the street, their topic of conversation finishes his sandwich and waves down the waitress to get his bill.

Nick scoffs audibly. “You’re seriously trying to bring in some no-name to work in my agency? Who the hell in their right mind would even agree to work for a green handler?”

"Uh, me?"

"You’re fucking with me." Nick’s voice has dropped to a dangerously flat tone, but Clint pays no heed to the warning.

"We’ve been over this, dollface, when I’m fucking with you—"

Nick cuts him off and snaps, "Shut the fuck up before I demote your sorry ass again."

Which, okay, not exactly an empty threat, but not one Clint’s terribly worried about either. "Hey, you’re the one who said I needed to find somebody I could work with,” Clint points out magnanimously. “I’m just following orders here, sir."

"You know damn well I meant from within the pool of Level 5’s and up."

"This guy’s better. Trust me." Nick’s skeptical silence drags out as Clint pushes his chair back and tosses a few bills down onto the table next to his coffee cup, preparing to follow his target back to his hotel. "Look, you remember that op a few weeks back that went shitstorm before the team was even in place?"

"Yeah, I’m still trying to sift through the shit-pile of paperwork and political fallout you left for me to clean up."

"You’re welcome,” Clint chirps. "No, but that good Samaritan I told you about? The one that popped up out of nowhere and got me the hell out of dodge?"

“ _That’s_ who you’re stalking?” Nick asks incredulously.

"I am not _stalking_ him. I’m evaluating him. He has been evaluated. He’s Grade-A agent material.” Okay, so technically when he first started tracking the guy, it maybe could have been construed as stalking. But Nick hadn’t believed him about the knight in tailored Armani who’d got him out of that AIM ambush alive. Admittedly, Clint had hit his head hard enough while abandoning his nest that he’d been starting to doubt it himself. But now the stalking has a retroactive purpose, therefore: _not stalking._

"Fine,” Nick finally agrees, gruff as ever. “Make it happen."

"Aye, aye, sir." Clint pulls the earpiece away and stows it in his jacket pocket, picking up his pace to overtake the recently discharged Lt. Phillip J. Coulson.

* * *

"Where the hell did you find this guy?"

They’re in Nick’s office, both with their feet thrown up on the smooth lacquer of his desk while they watch Coulson on the wall-mounted security monitor as he lays waste to the junior agents coming at him with everything they’ve got.

Three months into his time with SHIELD, Coulson had been taken off probationary status and inducted with an unprecedented Level 3 clearance. Now here they are a month later, and he’s taken over the improvised weapons training with the instructor’s full blessing.

Clint knows Nick is already seriously considering bumping Coulson up to Level 4 status. Nick was deadset on being a dick to him for no other reason than that Clint recruited him, but then Coulson won him over with his mad paperwork skills and unflappable demeanor. Clint himself is still languishing at Level 4, his inability to land a regular handler making his status as a specialist tenuous at best. Clint’s not worried, though. That’s what he brought Coulson in for.

“That’s the best part,” Clint chuckles. “He found me!”

Nick scoops up his Starbucks cup and takes a careful sip, like it’s actually a hot latte in there. Clint rolls his eyes. He knows full well it’s some mocha frappucino crap. Who the hell drinks a frappe without a straw? Nick Fury, that’s who--giant toasted marshmallow too preoccupied with keeping up badass appearances that he is. Nick sets it back down and says speculatively, “At this rate, he’ll more than outrank you within a year.”

He’s got that glint in his eye; the eye patch even looks like it’s got a scheming kind of shimmer to it, and Clint’s having none of that. “Hey, now! Don’t go getting any ideas. I called dibbs. He’s going to be my handler.”

“He’d be much more useful overseeing and running ops for me,” Nick argues, eyebrow raised in challenge.

“Already given up on your dreams of a precision strike team at your beck and call?” Clint needles.

“So far, I’ve got you. And Hill. And Sitwell. And, if your judgment can be trusted, Coulson,” Nick gripes. “Which amounts to a specialist with a talent for pissing every other agent off, two ops controllers I can only afford to send one of out at a time, and a handler who has yet to be tested in the field. That does not a promising goddamn strike force make.”

“You brought in more than just us, though. Hell, do you even remember how many agents you trained up through the ranks? There’s got to be at least a few more you know you can trust.”

“That’s just it, though. I _brought y’all in_ ; the rest were just standard recruits, cycled through the Academies. There’s no telling where their loyalties lie at this point.” Nick takes a more fortifying gulp of his ice-blended sugar high this time.

“You know, the more you hint at the likelihood of double and triple agents littering our illustrious ranks, the more I sure am glad you dragged me down into the pit with you.”

With the flick of a wrist, Nick sends a pen straight for Clint’s right eye. He snatches it out of the air easily enough, then tosses it behind him to embed in the wall just because he can and Nick hates it when he leaves holes around his office. “Don’t even try to front with me, asshole,” Nick snarks. “You love all this cloak and dagger shit.”

Clint’s eyes narrow, and he lets his face show how very fed up he is with the current status quo. “Not when it means I’m having to constantly watch my back around the people who should have it while you’ve got me rooting out the bad seeds.”

Nick nods his understanding. “Let’s hope your man proves up to snuff, then.”

“He will,” Clint promises, turning back to the screen just as Coulson ducks down and rolls across the training mat to avoid a swipe at his head. He comes back up with a discarded towel in hand, and, in three quick moves, has his opponent subdued on the floor with his arm yanked up behind his back, nearly choking himself with how the towel is strung from his neck to wrist. Clint grins.

* * *

Clint’s dragged awake by the insistent ringing of his phone. He doesn’t bother to do more than turn his ear away and into a pillow, though, waiting for the annoyance to cease so he can fall back asleep. Except that it doesn’t. Someone is very determined to get in touch with him at—his eyes glance over to the alarm clock flashing 12:28 PM. Alright, so, not an unreasonable hour, but still; he was _sleeping_.

He drops a hand over the edge of the bed to paw along the floor in search of his jeans. The sixth call has started up by the time he fishes his phone out of the pocket.

“Y’ello?” he answers through a yawn.

“It’s official. You’re welcome.”

Clint’s brow furrows, and he pulls the phone away to blink groggily at the caller ID. “Nick?” he asks, dropping the phone onto the pillow and then letting his head follow it down.

“Who else bothers calling your sorry ass?”

“This sounds like one of those times where you confuse my social butterfly status with your piranha personality.” Clint brings his hand back up to hold the phone to his ear so that he call roll over into a full body stretch, letting out a relieved groan as muscles light up with a faint ache.

Clint can’t tell if Nick is more exasperated or impressed when he accuses, “You just got laid.”

“Huh?”

“You _did!_ That was your exhausted-from-too-much-fucking groan.”

“Aw, dude! TMI," Clint whines. "Why do you even know that?” A bare arm loops over his waist, turning him over so he’s face-to-face with his newly awakened bed partner. He mouths _S_ _orry_ and gets a sleepy glare in return.

“’Cause you’re an asshole who insists on answering his damn phone even when somebody’s going downtown on him,” Nick continues, now firmly in the range of exasperation.

"You're the one who can't just leave a fucking message," Clint points out. "If you don't want me to pick up, then take the first three redirects to voicemail as a sign." The amused snort next to Clint is muffled by a pillow, and Clint prays it’s enough to keep Nick from hearing it on the other end of the connection.

No such luck, though. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Nick bursts out, “You just fucked Coulson, didn’t you? Motherfucking ass-clown—how many times do I have to tell you to keep your goddamn dick in your goddamn pants?”

Cat’s out of the proverbial bag, then. Clint opts to poke the pissy bear rather than grovel and make amends. “Well technically, sir, _he_ fucked _me_. And at the time, my dick was still pretty much in my pants.” Phil’s eyes have slipped back closed, but his aim is spot-on anyway when he moves a hand forward to grope Clint’s cock. Clint bites back a moan.

“People’s _lives_ are on the line here, Barton. The shit we’re working towards is too damn well important for you to literally fuck things up with the first promising recruit we’ve had in the last two years,” Nick rages.

Clint traces a fingertip around the faded edges of Phil’s Ranger tattoo and feels like he’s settled in the center of a storm. “Not fucking this one up, sir.”

Phil squints open an eye, and his smile is soft and warm with the lingering haze of sleep. Clint grins back dopily.

“Shit.” Clint’s about 95% sure that Nick’s rubbing at the irritated skin under his eye patch in annoyance. “You’ve been fucking him since the very start, haven’t you?”

“He needed an incentive to sign on with us,” Clint explains through his smile. Phil’s look, while fond, expresses quite clearly without words that that wasn’t at all how things unfolded in that hotel room nearly a year ago.

“Did he now?” Nick asks, all skepticism. “Well, when you two shitheads can be bothered to get dressed and make your way down to HQ, I’ve got paperwork for you to sign and a mission I need your sore ass on.”

Clint moves in so that he’s bracketed by Nick’s voice in one ear and Phil’s heartbeat in the other. “Your friendly teasing repertoire needs work, sir.”

“Like hell it does. What I _need_ is another damn field agent, and congratulations! You just drew the short straw. Find me somebody, preferably someone with enough screws loose to agree to work with you two, and see if you can manage to bring ‘em in without showing off the family jewels. Ain’t like they’re anything to gawk at.”

“You wound me, sir.”

“Every chance I get.”

The line goes dead, and Clint lets the phone fall back to the floor with a clatter. He’s determined not to move away from the inviting heat of Phil’s chest until he damn well pleases. Phil tightens his arm around his waist and unearths the other from the pillows to wrap it around his shoulders, so obviously he agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> (and then Phil really starts to grow on Nick, until one day, Clint’s chilling in the vents, and he overhears them laughing it up in Nick’s office. Nick’s all, “Cheese, my man.”
> 
> Clint is so hideously jealous because Nick never gave _him_ a nickname, and to make it all worse, they both refuse to tell Clint the story behind the nickname. So Clint storms off to Europe for an op that doesn’t even need him, refusing to talk to either of them, and they just laugh their asses off about how he’s crossed an ocean just to pout. 
> 
> But then Clint stumbles upon the Black Widow, and he drops off the grid. They’re both worried as all get out, but they won’t let anybody else catch on to that, so after fruitless hours trying to get a bead on either Clint or the Black Widow, they go back to Phil’s apartment to drink themselves silly, and there’s Clint. And the Black Widow. Painting each others nails. 
> 
> And Clint’s just like, “You guys were being bitches, so I went and got a new best friend." And that is the story of how Strike Team Delta came to be.)
> 
>  
> 
> **For more of this verse, please check out the[tumblr page](http://scarsandstoriesverse.tumblr.com/).**


End file.
